May is National Mental Health Month

Nearly 60 million people - approximately one quarter of the adult population in America - suffer from diagnosable mental health disorders each year. 

Since 1949, May has been designated as National Mental Health Month, in an effort to raise social awareness of mental health conditions and treatment. The website for Mental Health America is supporting this observance this year by providing an informative toolkit called "Do More for 1 in 4".  This toolkit is "a call to action for Americans to help the 1 in 4 American adults in their lives who are living with a diagnosable, treatable mental health condition". This toolkit provides information on some of the most common mental health disorders:

• Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
• Anxiety Disorder (including panic, obsessive-compulsive, post traumatic stress, phobias, and generalized anxiety disorders)
• Bipolar Disorder
• Clinical Depression

For more information on the "Do More for 1 in 4" project, please see this link: http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/go/may.

If you are a member of the TWU community, you may be interested to know that the TWU Counseling Center provides a wide variety of services for students, faculty and staff. Their selection of resources includes counseling groups, outreach services, consultation services, and a variety of self-help materials. Additionally, they have many online resources, such as assessments and workshops. 

Please feel free to share any other mental health resources that you feel might be beneficial!

Guest Post: Three of the Best Whole Body Exercises for Optimum Fitness

For many of us, "getting fit" and exercising means we've decided it's time to lose weight and we have only a small idea of how to do that. However, going at exercising from a weight loss perspective can be a difficult approach to succeed with. Weight loss and "getting fit" don't always necessarily go hand in hand. Also, many people take to exercising in ways that are too narrow minded. In order to truly find a healthy way to fitness, you should try to consider exercises that involve your entire body. Full body workouts are the best pathways towards total fitness and health. You should focus not only on muscle strength, but also on activities that exercise your core, heart, and lungs. While for many it may seem like full body workouts are nearly impossible, you may be interested to find some of the things that workout every inch of your being. These three exercises are some of the best and most healthy ways to attain a full body workout.

Swimming
Swimming is one of the most well-rounded sports you can take part in. With a thorough and trained swimming workout, an individual can work every muscle in their body, do a significant amount of aerobic exertion, and cardiac workout all at once. The more body parts that are involved in a workout, the more calories you will burn, which is one thing that makes swimming a great tool for careful weight loss. Because swimming is a non-weight bearing workout, it is less strenuous on your joints and muscles. Of course, as with any workout, you want to be careful that you are performing the strokes and movements correctly. Because swimming is a repetitive motion sport, injuries can occur if strokes are performed incorrectly. Be smart about your workouts. Just 30 minutes in a pool provides a wonderful workout for your core, lungs, heart, and primary muscle groups.

Kickboxing
For a slightly more adrenaline pumping workout, kickboxing may be more fitting for some individuals. Kickboxing is another total body workout that focuses its efforts on core muscle strength and aerobic health. Through a combination of choreographed punching and kicking, individuals can attain a thorough workout that is strenuous and fun. For some, the repetitive nature of swimming can be dull and uninspiring, so kickboxing may be a great alternative. Though it may seem that kickboxing would focus more of its attention on the lower body, the workout actually does a great job of involving all muscle groups upper and lower. One drawback to kickboxing, however, is that it typically requires special equipment and instruction.

Cross Country Skiing

If swimming and kickboxing seem somewhat impractical to you, then it is possible that this exercise may be out of the question. However, cross country skiing is definitely one of the best total body workouts you can come by. This sport burns maximum calories and provides an incredible cardio workout. The body motion that cross country skiing involves is very similar to running, but provides for a lower impact and smoother workout. Skiing is fast paced and fun and this is one of the reasons it makes for such a strong workout—people enjoy it. While cross country skiing is one of the absolute best total body workouts, obviously it can be hard to gain access to all the conditions needed. There are machines in gyms that mimic the movements that can be very successful, but, of course, they won't be exactly the same as the real thing.

Note: Please remember that before you start any new exercise program you should always check with your doctor.

What do you think about these types of whole body exercises? Do you have any other ideas for whole body exercise to share?

This guest post is contributed by Angelita Williams, who writes on the topics of online courses.  She welcomes your comments at her email Id: angelita.williams7@gmail.com.

Showcase on Student Success: Who's Who

Congratulations to our graduate students who were selected for inclusion in Who's Who among Students in American Universities and Colleges for 2012!

Ms. Carol Creech, PhD student in Health Studies

Ms. Cassity Gutierrez, PhD student in Health Studies

Ms. Kimberly Mory, PhD student in Health Studies

Ms. Lona Sandon, PhD student in Health Studies

Ms. Lindsey Peddicord, MS student in Health Studies

You might also enjoy Showcase on...Caroline Raffidol-Blanco, doctoral student.

Also, check out the blurb on Lona Sandon on the TWU Graduate School website.


Are you a Health Studies student or alum with a success story you would like to share? Please contact our blog editors Heidi Ashbaugh and Morgan O'Donnell. We'd love to hear from you!

Guest Post: Building DE Courses

Last time in this section, we talked about how to design and plan your course offline, outside of Blackboard, using a Learning Guide that mirrors exactly the components of each module in your course. For more on the process, features, and benefits of using this approach to course planning, visit the Health Studies Milestones and Meditations Blog at: http://twuhealthstudies.blogspot.com/2012/03/guest-post-tips-for-designing-and.html. This time we’re going to talk about actually Building DE Courses.

This part of the TWU ID site is indexed into seven (7) sections covering, among other topics, the Course Menu, Module Creation, Technical Skills, and Third Party Tools for Teaching & Learning. We won’t cover them in detail in this section, but we will briefly address the Course Menu, personalizing the distance education course, and Web 2.0 tools.

There’s really no mystery to building distance education courses if you follow just a few simple guidelines. As with any communication project, you will typically start with an outline of what you want to write about, or talk about. In distance education, this outline is represented by the Course Menu. Get the course menu in order, and the rest of your course will come together much more easily.

When Blackboard shells become available for a new course, they typically come preloaded with some links already in the course menu. A bare-bones new course shell includes links for announcements, instructor information, a syllabus, and discussion board. All of these areas are empty, of course, until you, the instructor, populates them.

Once you have determined the elements you want to include in your course, you are ready to start populating the Course Menu and arranging the elements in the order you want them to appear. If you are using a course from a previous semester that you or someone else has taught, you will see all the links that were used by that instructor. You may want to rename, delete, or even hide these links from your students. Or you may choose to rearrange them so that the flow makes more sense to you. This short video shows you how to add and rearrange course menu items:

However, there’s a lot more to building DE courses than the course menu. There is the personalization of the courses, which is where you, as the Instructor, can assert your personality and presence in the course. This aspect of course construction is the fun part and allows you to play with clipart, banners, photographs, and Word Art text. It’s important to remember that the World Wide Web – where our Blackboard courses live – is a visual medium. Reading line-after-line of text – no matter how relevant the information, is . . . well, boring. Breaking up blocks of text with white space or images, or even indented paragraphs and bullets is critical to successful communication.

All of our instructors have the software and tools to give their courses a jolt of their personality and to brand their courses in such a way that students will instantly identify the course with the textbook, subject matter, content and instructor. A picture really is worth a thousand words.

A typical banner, like the one shown to the left, is 6.5 to 7 inches wide and about 1 inch high. This banner was made in Microsoft Publisher using Word Art for the text and a photograph provided by the faculty member. I typically include the name of the course, the instructor’s name, and the course ID along with an image – sometimes provided by the Instructor but not always. Publisher is a component of the Microsoft Office Suite, but the banner can also be created using Microsoft Word, or even PowerPoint. Here is a YouTube video that demonstrates using PowerPoint to create a banner: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhhtbTsILhA&list=PLA6F88267DF7543EA&index=3&feature=plcp. (You may also want to check out some of the other videos on this page, since it contains several informative videos on using many aspects of Blackboard that may be helpful for you and your student.)

The final section in Building DE Courses, Third Party Tools for Teaching and Learning, is an introduction to Web 2.0 tools where even more functionality and fun is available. Many of these you already know about and use in your classes: Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to name just a few. However, there are many other Web 2.0 tools that help extend the reach and collaborative aspects of Blackboard to your students.

By now you are probably thinking, “easy for you to say.” Well, yes, that’s true. But, it’s also true that knowledge of rocket science is not required to resize photographs, or convert PowerPoint presentations  to .pdf files. And, the best news of all is that TWU’s Instructional Design team has done all the research for you and posted it to TWU ID and YouTube. Additionally, our department’s course support team is available to help you with any Blackboard elements you would like to include in your courses.

This post contributed by Margaret Cortez.

Margaret Cortez is the Course Support Specialist for the TWU Department of Health Studies.

Alcohol Awareness Month: Interview with Sonia Redwine, Assistant Director of Health Education at TWU

The National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (NCADD) has designated each April as Alcohol Awareness Month. Alcohol abuse affects a large number of Americans, with NCADD stating that 8.5% of our population, or more than 18 million individuals, suffer from disorders relating to alcohol, as well as the startling fact that "25% percent of U.S. children have been exposed to alcohol-use disorders in their family" (http://www.ncadd.org/index.php/for-the-media/press-releases-a-news-articles/318-ncadd-alcohol-awareness-month).

To help clarify some of the aspects of alcohol abuse, I interviewed Sonia Redwine, the Assistant Director of Health Education here at Texas Woman's University. Here are her responses to some of the more common questions that individuals have.

Question: What is alcohol abuse?

Redwine: The American Psychological Association characterizes someone who has experienced one or more of the following situations in the past year as abusing alcohol:

1. Recurrent alcohol use resulting in failure to fulfill role obligations at home, school, or work. 
2. Recurrent alcohol use in dangerous situations, like while operating a motor-vehicle.
3. Recurrent alcohol related legal problems, like a DWI.
4. Continued alcohol use despite social and interpersonal problems caused or worsened by alcohol.

31% of college students met the criteria for a diagnosis of alcohol abuse within a year (Kinght, et al., 2002.).

Question: What are the potential issues that can arise when a person abuses alcohol?

Redwine: Traditional age college students are already at increased risk of unintentional injury, and alcohol is a contributing factor to falls, burns, drowning, and motor-vehicle crashes.  A reported 3,360,000 college students between the ages of 18-24 drive under the influence (Hingson, et al., 2009).  That is a staggering amount!  We also know that alcohol is the #1 date rape drug and the abuse of alcohol can result in sexual assault or date rape.  In addition to sexual assault, 100,000 students between the ages of 18-24 reported being too intoxicated to know if they consented to sex (Hingson, et al., 2009).  If students don’t know if they are consenting, how do they know if they are properly conducting safe sex practices, like using a condom?  Academic problems can also occur, such as, missing classes, falling behind, doing poorly on exams/papers, and receiving lower grades.  The Bacchus Network has a great link that shows the correlation between the number of drinks per week and the average GPA.  The more you drink, the lower your grade (http://www.bacchusnetwork.org/alcohol-academics.html). Health consequences that can arise with chronic use include liver cirrhosis, pancreatitis, and high blood pressure, along with various types of cancer.

Question: What are some of the warning signs of alcohol abuse?

Redwine: Here are some good questions to ask yourself or someone you think is abusing alcohol:

1. Do you look for reasons to get drunk?
2. Do you wake up the morning after not remembering part of the evening before?
3. Do you drink to get drunk?

Other warning signs would include failure to fulfill obligations, poor attendance, low grades, irritability, and defensiveness.

Question: What are some strategies for cutting back on or quitting drinking?

Redwine: The National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism suggests the following guidelines:

1. Write down your reason for cutting down/abstaining
2. Set a drink limit and write it down.  
3. Place both of these in a place you will see often.
4. Keep a diary of your drinking.
5. Don’t be around temptation
6. Learn to say no
7. Get support
8. Don’t give up!

Question: What can you do if you are afraid someone you know is abusing alcohol?

Redwine: Talk to a healthcare provider or counselor to get more information and resources.  When talking with the individual, use specific examples, especially recent ones, which illustrate your concerns.  Get help from other friends, family members, and community resources.  For more information on local programs, call 1-800-662-HELP (4357).

Question: Where can individuals get more information on preventing alcohol abuse?

Redwine: Students can always come by Student Health Services to get information from our health education library, or make an appointment to see a provider.  We are located in Hubbard Hall, next to DPS, and across from ACT.  If you are not on the Denton campus, you can email healtheduation@twu.edu for more information.  The TWU Counseling Center is another great resource, and they have some materials available on their website.  I also use the following websites: www.collegedrinkingprevention.gov and www.niaaa.nih.gov.

Do you have other suggestions for help in preventing alcohol abuse? If so, please share your resources with us!

Guest Post - Turn Your Interview Into an Offer

Do you believe the offer goes to the most qualified candidate? Probably not.  The offer DOES go to the most  prepared   candidate.  So, how do you get over the stress of giving “wrong” answers and become comfortable with the interviewing process?  Preparation and practice will give you the confidence to present your accomplishments effectively, increase your comfort with “difficult” questions and prepare you for interview success.

  Make a Connection – Clearly define your “why buy” by thinking like an employer.  You are being hired to solve
  problems.  These three ideas can supercharge your interview preparation:

1.     Research the employer – trends, culture, mission and vision – how does this information connect to your values, interests, skills and personality.  Can you answer why you would say yes to an offer?

2.     Complete a position analysis – understand the deliverables vs. your skills and contributions.  Will you be productive and engaged to give superior work if hired?  Explain how your skills will immediately contribute to the employer’s bottom-line.

3.     Understand the “hot buttons” – discuss how you will solve everyday problems in the role, big headaches that might come up; importantly be prepared to discuss how you can spot problems that are yet to happen—AND won’t happen because you would have already addressed these!

Create Visual Alignment – your answers MUST be relevant, remarkable and resonate with the employer.  The best way to do this to share success stories as they relate to deliverables on the job.  Use these ideas to prepare and practice compelling answers.

1.     Prepare your stories – use the challenge-action-result (CAR) process to clearly describe the challenge faced, then add what you did to respond to this challenge and end with a strong result which clearly showcases how you will address the problem in the role being discussed.  People remember stories –use these to engage and invite curiosity.  Quantify, where possible—how much, by when, how many. 

2.     Present your best, authentic self – be positive, upbeat and aware of non-verbal communication.  Practice in front of a mirror or with a coach to become comfortable.  Image matters, so dress professionally.

3.     Show interest and engagement – ask inquiry questions about workplace culture, expectations, management styles and ongoing training.  Connect this information to how you will add value with your skills.

Display Accountability – ask for the job; be bold and ask if anything gives the employer cause for concern so that you can address the issue immediately for them. 

1.     Establish a time-line for decision making – your goal is to help the employer make the right fit decision, so ask what else you could do to take this discussion to the next step and by when.

2.     Write your thank you letter – make this letter “more than” just a thank you.  Create an addendum, if appropriate and send in with your thank you note.  Examples of addendums could be a contributions document, a 30-60-90 day plan or expanding on ideas discussed in the interview.

3.     Give them a reason to pursue you – use behaviors consistently so that the interviewers see you as likeable, talented and approachable.  Leave them with a memorable and concise unique selling proposition.

Research, preparation and practice will get you the offer you want and richly deserve.  What are you waiting for? Go with confidence to your interview and engage, inspire and persuade people to celebrate your talents.  Tell them what they will be missing if your talent is missing from their organization! 

Sunitha Narayanan is a certified career coach with a passion for connecting people and their talents to life and work opportunities. She is a co-active coach, empowering her clients to believe in their dreams, set actionable goals and actively create joy in their work lives. She is with OI Partners Promark Company, a firm that offers executive coaching, leadership development and outplacement services. Follow Sunitha on Twitter @sunithanarayana.  She can be reached at snarayanan@oipartners.net

For additional assistance interviewing, be sure to check out the Career Services workshop:

Nail the Interview with Effective Interviewing Techniques

Date: Tuesday, April 17th
Time: 2:30-4:00 pm
Location: SU 113 

Also read their Sample Questions & Tips page.

You might also enjoy Career Tips: Keep Your Head Out of the Sand.

Guest Post: Health Focus - Sexual Assault Awareness Month

 

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month!

According to national statistics, 1 in 5 female college students will experience sexual assault during her college career. If that isn’t a women’s health issue, I don’t know what is!

Did you know that 75% of sexual assault victims knew their assailant prior to the assault?

Did you know that 70% of sexual assaults involve the use of alcohol?

Did you know that no one can give consent for sex if they are under the influence of alcohol or drugs?

Consent must be freely given and communicated clearly!

Many times, victims blame themselves for the assault, based on common myths such as “I shouldn’t have left the party with him,” “I should have fought back more,” or “I shouldn’t have been drinking.” But, it is important to remember that no one ever asks to be sexually assaulted.

Remember, no one is to blame for sexual assault but the assailant!

We know that young women are in a high-risk group for sexual assault as well as domestic violence, and TWU has a unique program designed to keep our students safe and informed about these issues: Project REV!

Project REV offers services and resources about sexual assault, as well as domestic violence, dating abuse, and stalking. Services provided include:

• Educational presentations and events

• Academic advocacy

• Individual counseling

• Referrals and resources

Just call 940-898-2744 or email rev@twu.edu. All our services are free and confidential!

This month, in observance of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, the Project REV student organization is hosting a Take Back the Night march. Every day, women and men around the world are victims of sexual violence. Project REV invites you to march with us and say enough is enough! Come join us as we Take Back the Night!

Date:      April 9^th

Where:   Hubbard Amphitheater

Time:      6:30 pm

What:     Featuring local music, pizza, and much more!

For more information about Project REV or Take Back the Night, call 940-898-2744 or email rev@twu.edu.

Disclaimer: This project is supported by grant #2006-WA-AX-0011 awarded by the Office on Violence Against Women, Office of Justice Programs, U. S. Department of Justice. Points of view in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U. S. Department of Justice. 

This guest post was written by Stephanie Jordan, Project Coordinator for Project REV at Texas Woman's University. You can visit the Project Rev website at http://www.twu.edu/project-rev/.